Fan Fic /
Olivine Romance

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Jasmine: I'm sorry if I misled you, but I have no interest in being anything but friends.

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Jasmine is the Gym Leader of Olivine City. She is, in her own words, "...twenty-one and five-foot-four and happilysingle". She is infamous amongst her social circle for being hostile to all concepts of romance, love, and sex. Unfortunately for Jasmine, her innocent, anti-romantic lifestyle is under constant assault from all manner of indignities, from friends who tease her to unwanted suitors trying to woo her. Shortly into the story, Morty, Ecruteak City's Gym Leader and a middle school "friend" returns into Jasmine's life and brashly declares his intent to break her of her prudishness. His boast to get her laid by New Year's Day, four months away, sets off a storm of events that destroys Jasmine's heretofore melancholic existence.

Olivine Romance is a Pokémon fanfic that follows Gym Leader Jasmine as she struggles with questions of love, maturation, sex, friendship, career, and family. It is written by fanfic author Snowden (no, not THAT Snowden) and can be found at fanfic site Archive of Our Own.

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There are also several side-stories within the same universe that occur before the events of Olivine Romance:

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Olivine Romance includes the following tropes:

A-Cup Angst: Jasmine is frequently teased by Erika, Morty, and others about this. She puts on a brave front, but inwardly decries not her lack of a bosom, but society's fixation on breast size.

A Dog Named "Dog": Most Pokemon are simply called by their species names. Since Jasmine is telling the story, she often calls opponent's Pokemon by their species name even when she's been told their nickname.

Abusive Parents: As the story goes on, it becomes increasingly clear that Jasmine's issues were caused by emotional neglect from her parents, primarily from her Mother.

Action Bomb: The Self-Destruct and Explosion attacks, property of Graveler, Magnemite, Voltorb, and Gengar; the latter uses it to win the Gym Leader Tournament Finals between Morty and Volkner.

Action Girl: In addition to going toe-to-toe with male (and female) trainers in Pokemon battles, Jasmine occasionally shows off her gymnastic skills, such as dodging a Bubble Beam to retrieve the remote from Tyko (a Piplup).

All Women Are Prudes: Everyone seems to think this applies to Jasmine (both in how she acts, and how she thinks the world ought to be), and spend considerable effort trying to convince her otherwise. Jasmine eventually subverts the trope, saying her issue isn't with sex, per se, but with relationships.

Almost Kiss: Morty pulls Jasmine aside midway through Part 1 and appears on the verge of kissing her. At the last moment he arranges her hair's spike-tails instead. This is a sign the story is going to take its sweet time developing their relationship.

Alone Among the Couples: Jasmine, during the gala and in general. Notably she's single by choice, but that doesn't stop her from feeling left out.

Announcer Chatter: During high-profile matches, an announcer is present to give blow-by-blow commentary to the media audience. Sometimes Jasmine's friends act as the ref and announcer, where they exaggerate every outcome with all the gusto of a Large Ham Announcer.

Anti-Climactic Parent: Subverted. Through Parts 1 and 2 Jasmine alludes to how horrible a mother she has. After not seeing each other for months, Jasmine returns home in Part 3. Her mother's very first words are ordering Jasmine to help her with chores- without even acknowledging Jasmine by name, or saying "Hello", or even looking at her daughter. The conversation goes downhill from there and it starts to feel like Jasmine was understating this woman's horridness.

Awesome by Analysis: Pretty much anyone who wins a Pokemon battle does so by this. Many of the losers could count as well.

Notable examples are Morty figuring out Volkner gave a Lum Berry to Electivire and then lied about Electivire's ability... twice, and Jasmine figuring out Violet's Pokemon fight in identical pairs to confuse opponents by noting their gender.

Jasmine goes into GREAT detail to explain how she figured out the zombies were Dittos.

Bait-and-Switch: The climax of part four sends a suicidal Jasmine to the Crescent Bay Bridge for what appears to be a tragic ending. Only to find Ethan preparing to jump. The fateful meeting spares them both.

The Bet: One is made in Part 1: Morty bets that Jasmine will get laid before New Year's Day, four months from the time of declaration. But not necessarily with him. Another is proposed by Jasmine to Morty in Part 2: He has to find Amphy a mate and Jasmine will give him her First Kiss. Except it's not her first.

Beta Couple: Lyra and Ethan; although they're not without their own relationship issues, they seem paltry in comparison to Jasmine's emotionally-rife courting by Morty.

Big Storm Episode: Six years ago, a massive, extremely powerful hurricane hits the coastal region surrounding Olivine. It wrecks havoc on the city, flooding downtown, sinking ships, grounding air traffic and knocking out power. For Jasmine, its worst effect is cutting off travel to Cianwood, right when she needs a medicine to save her Ampharos that can only be acquired there. Ash flies through the storm atop his Charizard and delivers the medicine in the nick of time.

Blatant Lies: Used regularly between trainers as they battle, such as when Volkner makes two outlandish lies about Electivire's ability during his battle with Morty (he almost gets away with it).

When Jasmine can't overcome Violet's tactics, she has to rely on her newly-caught, disobedient Skarmory and his absurd defense to win the match.

Early on Jasmine discovers that compared to many of the other gym leaders, her own strategies tend to be very boring and one-note, typically revolving around her Steelix. As the story progresses, we see her adopt more intricate strategies and diversify her team.

Breaking Bad News Gently: Pryce delivering the results of Jasmine's Gym Leader exams to her. It helped that Jasmine was expecting to be fired rather than be put on probation.

Bury Your Gays: Gill from 'Path of Least Resistance' commits suicide as a response to relentless bullying targeting his homosexuality.

Captured Super-Entity: Although it could be applied to some of the stronger Pokemon and their trainers, it doesn't really elevate to this trope. Tobias, however, makes a living out of capturing and taming legendary Pokemon. His team reads as a laundry list of Pokemon deities, and he's used them to win a World Championship. For this he's become a living legend in his own right and is in contention for the title of "World Strongest Pokemon Trainer".

The Casanova: Played straight and subverted. Morty loves flirting with ladies and often succeeds in seducing them, but rarely takes them to bed.

Catch-Phrase: "I'm sorry if I misled you, but I'm not interested in being anything but friends." - Jasmine's standard rejection notice. And also the very phrase Ash uses to turn down Jasmine's confession six years prior to the story.

Chain of Deals: Jasmine's subordinate Ted asks Jasmine to deliver a love letter for him to Janina, her other subordinate. Jasmine shirks this task off to a third subordinate, Connie. By the end of the chapter, a throw-away character brings the love letter back to Jasmine, telling her a complete stranger shunted the task to him. Jasmine wonders how many hands the letter passed through throughout the day, before finally handing it back to Ted and telling him to give the letter to Janina himself.

The Chase: Tyko the Piplup steals the video scoreboard remote. Jasmine, her subordinates, and all of their Pokemon attempt to track the culprit down. Hilarity Ensues.

Childhood Friend Romance: Jasmine and Morty met in middle school, although this might be a subversion in that Jasmine never realized Morty was teasing her out of fondness.

Christmas Cake: Morty warns Jasmine about this concept. She scorns the idea but admits to feeling pressured by it.

Closed Circle: The Halloween party, after Tobias is murdered. Jasmine, Morty, and co. are trapped in the blacked-out convention center searching for the culprit. It's an elaborate prank set up by Whitney.

Cosplay: Jasmine is dressed up by Erika as Sailor Aki Kinyobi-san, a character from a Sailor Moonexpy anime. This draws plenty of attention from the male cast and blushing on her part at the Halloween party. The author drew artwork of Jasmine in her costume.

Country Matters: Cooltrainer Warren initially earns Jasmine's ire for calling her this. And he wonders why she rejected his love...

Daydream Surprise: One confusing segment has Morty intrude into Jasmine's bedroom and immediately begin consensual intercourse, which seems Out of Character for Jasmine at this point. It turns out to be one of her masturbation fantasies.

Day in the Life: "The Tribulations of Being a Gym Leader" chapter is this for Jasmine. She specifically points out the frenetic, stressful, tedious, boring, and crazy events throughout the chapter are normal for her workday.

Succession is framed like this- Just a "normal" day for the CEO of the Pokemon League and most powerful man in the world, Steven Stone.

Day In The Lime Light: In addition to Jasmine, the story also focuses on many other side-characters of the Pokemon games, particularly the Johto Gym Leaders.

Succession and Transmutation are themselves Days in the Lime Light for Steven Stone and Silver, respectively.

Jasmine is so convinced she won't be able to beat Red when he eventually comes to her gym, she's trying to pad her win ratio to ensure her inevitable loss doesn't bring her below the 50% ratio required by probation.

Despair Event Horizon: Jasmine reaches this when her mother casts her out. Unable to turn on her mother, Jasmine redirects her anger into a fantasy about raping and killing Morty. Realizing the horror of her own desires, she resolves to take her own life.

Don't Celebrate Just Yet: Jasmine is ecstatic to catch Skarmory. Until she realizes they're in the middle of a giant Skarmory colony full of vicious, territorial birds.

The Dreaded: Red. He's on tour of the Johto Region challenging the gyms, and is beating them handily. Jasmine is not looking forward to his arrival.

Driven to Suicide: The culmination of the non-stop, relentless hardships thrust upon Jasmine in Part 4 results in Jasmine deciding to take her life.

Driving Question: What are Jasmine's issues with romance? The end of Part 2 adds another: Who was the guy from six years ago?

Exact Eavesdropping: Jasmine sneaks up upon Morty and Will having a chess match, and finds out a name that is likely to be extremely important to understanding Morty's character.

Almost-10-year-old Jasmine overhears her parents arguing over her upcoming birthday present, namely whether they can afford a Pokemon. The scene helps establish the family dynamics of Jasmine's childhood.

Explaining Your Power to the Enemy: Whether from one opponent to another, Jasmine's internal monologue, or by way of onlookers, most advanced tactics atre explained in detail to the reader. The two notable examples: Volkner outright lying to Morty about Electavire's ability, and Jasmine explaining her successful tactics to Silver as a way to calm him down and help him make sense of his mid-battle failures (he goes on to win the battle, but not due to the intel gained from Jasmine).

Exploited Immunity: During a double-battle, Steven has his Metagross Zen Headbutt his Tyranitar, who is holding down an opponent's Dusknoir. The Psychic attack does nothing to the Dark-type Tyranitar, but the force is transferred through to the Ghost-type Dusknoir.

Fantasy Gun Control: Averted hard in Transmutation, the Rockets use guns, bombs, and rockets in addition to weaponized Pokemon.

Averted in Succession. The rifle used to stop the murderous rampage of an Aerodactyl becomes a permanent reminder to Steven about the high stakes of his job as Pokemon League CEO.

Morty's secret lover is Phoebe, who was mentioned but not named at various points in the story.

Erika secretly harbors a lesbian crush on Jasmine. She was the only one not fooled by Jasmine's facetious claim to be gay in Chapter 1.

A complex series of clues lead to the most significant reveal in the work: Red's real name is Ash, and is the young man from Jasmine's past. Jasmine had hinted that her crush from six years ago had a short name beginning with a vowel, but with Red, the game protagonist, existing, it naturally stood to reason that Ash, Red's anime counterpart, was redundant and non-existent. However, in other parts of the story Red's rival Blue was also named as Gary Oak, hinting that the color names were merely nicknames. Jasmine has met Red several times in the modern story and senses a familiarity with him, but does not make the connection with her past crush due to poor eyesight and poor facial recognition- two weaknesses of hers witnessed on numerous occasions; notably when Jasmine fails to recognize her teenage idol, world-famous Cynthia Stone when the two meet in-person. Despite Jasmine's sense of deja vu, even the reader is led astray; at this point Red was an unnamed stranger and the familiarity could be attributed to Jasmine subconsciously recognizing Red from popular media. Even in a situation that would surely reveal his true name, during his battle with Whitney, Red's name was obfuscated by a glitchy video display board.

For Your Own Good: Jasmine's mother's reason for interfering with Jasmine's relationships.

George Jetson Job Security: Minor tardiness lands Jasmine in trouble, eventually leading to "Gym Leader Probation". The entire Pokemon-battling portion of the plot revolves around Jasmine attempting to keep her job.

The Government: The Pokemon League. They're not actually the government, but they are a world-wide organization with jurisdiction over all Pokemon-related matters, including Pokemon battles and the Gym Leader system. They come with all the ineptitude, corruption, and banality inherent to the trope, which has made Jasmine's career a bureaucratic hell.

Heel Realization: Downplayed. Characters experience this in one form or another, with the most prominent one being Jasmineherself at the end of Part 3, regarding her dismissive nature towards Morty's affections. Which is quickly turned upside down to hell and back when she discovers Morty cheating on her... or more accurately, cheating with her.

Heroic BSoD: Jasmine seems afflicted by a chronic version of this. Each time she reboots and tries harder, life throws something new to break her down. The most prominent happens in Part 4, when she catches her boyfriend Morty cheating on her, leading to a series of revelations and unwise reactions that strips every joy and refuge from her existence. She becomes so withdrawn that her battle record plummets from a very health positive to a dead tie just from all the missed matches.

Hope Spot: After several chapters' worth of reveals that completely break her spirit, it seems like Jasmine might finally be picking herself up after a call from Whitney. Nope.

In-Series Nickname: Morty and only Morty calls Jasmine "Jazz". It annoys her to no end. She learns to accept it somehow.

And as per usual of the series, many Pokemon are given nicknames by their trainers. Jasmine has "Tyko", a Piplup, and "Choir", a Corsola. Her Skarmory is also sometimes shortened to "Skarm Skarm". The Olivine Lighthouse is still Amphy. Amphy's mate, who was caught by Morty as part of Jasmine's request, is nicknamed Spectra.

Interrupted Suicide: Jasmine heads to Crescent Bay Bridge, fully committed to jumping off and ending her life. She arrives to find Ethan doing the same.

Invisibility: Keido uses an Accelgor that can move so fast, it becomes practically invisible. In double battles, by having Accelgor's partner use Shadow Sneak on its shadow, they too can share in the invisibility fun.

I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Erika harbors a lesbian crush for Jasmine. Realizing Jasmine's heterosexual preference and the impossibility of reciprocation, Erika conspires to give Jasmine happiness by setting her up in a relationship with Volkner.

Only in a moment of extreme torment does Erika reveal her feelings for Jasmine with a kiss. Jasmine turns her down gently.

Locked Out of the Loop: Part 4 reveals that not only were Morty and Erika conspiring to bring Jasmine out of her shell by having Morty fake a relationship with her, but pretty much everyone in Jasmine's social circle was aware of what was going on. Jasmine does not take this well.

Love Makes You Dumb: Not explicitly stated yet, but it's clear that one of the reasons Erika's plan failed was because both she and Morty had feelings for Jasmine that clouded their better judgement.

Luminescent Blush: Jasmine comes down with these when sexual innuendo aimed at her hits too close to the mark.

Magnetic Weapons: Jasmine has Steelix and Magnezone team up to perform a railgun attack. Steelix coughs up a metal spike to use as a projectile, and Magnezone fires it using its magnetism. The technique proves to be Awesome but Impractical and ends up causing significant property damage.

Male Restroom Etiquette: Steven complains about violators of this while mentally appreciating his own private Executive Restroom.

My Beloved Smother: Erika turns out to be covertly acting as a non-familial example towards Jasmine, to an insane and damaging degree. The author even describes her attitude as "I know what's best for you, because I care for you."

My Greatest Failure: Steven Stone blames himself for the atmosphere of ultra-competitiveness and brinksmanship that led to the Castelia World Championship Massacre. Upon taking leadership of the Pokemon League, he swears an oath to prevent a repeat of the massacre, as well as addressing the social unrest that resulted from the tragedy.

This is Skarmory's schtick: He wins his first battle despite completely ignoring orders, simply because the opposing Grass-type specialist has no way to seriously injure the bird. Even against stronger opponents, he takes significantly more beating to take down compared to the rest of the Pokemon.

Not a Morning Person: Most Gym Leaders, on account of their long hours. Jasmine and Morty in particular; she stays up late playing computer games in order to de-stress, and he goes on paranormal hunting trips. The result is general grogginess and grumpiness before the noon-hour. For Jasmine, this leads to the tardiness that kick-starts the probation subplot.

One Hit KO: Warren abuses a loophole to allow items during his battle against Jasmine. Jasmine turns the tables by using an X Accuracy, ensuring Steelix's Fissure can one-shot foe after foe and burn through Warren's stockpile of Revives.

One-Hour Work Week: Averted: Jasmine spends an enormous amount of time on her Gym Leader job, most of it tedious paperwork unrelated to Pokemon battles. The rest of the story takes place during the evenings or weekends, and it's said she's sacrificing sleep to fit it all in.

Jasmine's mother raised her with strict expectations but little support and no guidance on how to meet those expectations. She often berates her for minor misbehavior and is not above hitting her, and it seems she does so not to try to discipline Jasmine, but out of anger for impinging on her own life.

Power Levels: Like the games, Pokemon can be level 1-100, and individual stats such as Speed or Special Attack are occasionally given, but in general they're treated as "guidelines" for comparison's sake and almost never determine the outcome of a battle.

Trainers are ranked as well. However, this is more akin to media's sports rankings than to actual power level; even in-universe they acknowledge the rankings are, at best, marginally accurate.

A section of one chapter has a vivid debate about the most powerful trainer in the world. One character points to the rankings chart for support, while another dissects the analysis of said chart.

Precision F-Strike: Jasmine so rarely cusses, especially out loud, that her friends ogle her when she does break out a swear word.

A guy named Edward is brought up in Part 3 and implied to be the boy who caused Jasmine's hatred towards men. He's not, but he knows about the guy who did.

Danielle is made out to be Jasmine's rival for Morty's affection. She's not a serious contender. However, the unseen woman at the Halloween party who was hanging out with Morty backstage and whom Jasmine was told was Danielle, was actually Phoebe, Morty's true lover. Careful readers will pick out the fact that she calls Morty by his given name, while Danielle only uses Morty's surname.

Relationship Upgrade: After freaking out over their first kiss, Jasmine thinks her second kiss with Morty marks this occasion.

Rescue Romance: Ash crosses the open-ocean through a category five hurricane in order to deliver life-saving medicine for Jasmine's Ampharos. She subsequently develops a deep crush for him.

Tantrum Throwing: When Jasmine learns the truth of Morty's infidelity, she throws an entire computer monitor against a wall hard enough to break the screen. One wonders what would have happened had she been face-to-face with the perpetrator.

Tsundere: Jasmine towards Morty. Also Morty towards Jasmine during middle school. Lyra and most of the cast think Silver is one.

The Dulcinea Effect: A mere day after meeting Jasmine, Red, or Ash as he was then known, braves a hurricane to bring her pokemon a life-saving medicine. Jasmine subsequently falls head over heels for him.

There Are No Therapists: Well, there are, but Jasmine's too stubborn to see them. This is a major plot point. Erika's belief that Jasmine can't or won't seek professional help for her issues leads to Erika coming up with her plan as a way to help Jasmine.

Subverted in Chapter 76 when Jasmine tells Ethan that she once shared her darkest secret with a therapist who dismissed it like it was nothing.

The Unapologetic: Jasmine never apologizes to another human in good faith. She is often called stubborn and prideful, even by herself - a trait she got from her mother.

Unreliable Narrator: Jasmine, oh so very much. She constantly gives her own opinion on things, fails or is unable to convey other people's knowledge, opinions, or feelings, often makes factual mistakes, and hides things about herself from the reader- like the fact that she had been kissed years before Morty reappeared. Jasmine acknowledges she's a self-centered and biased narrator.

Weight Woe: Erika suffers from a mild case of this, as she tends to binge on chocolate when stressed. Mild, in that Erika is still well figured and it's not a major issue to her.

On the other hand, Jasmine is repeatedly teased for being inordinately skinny. Erika constantly insists on feeding her, Morty and others remark on how child-like she looks and treat her like a little kid. This becomes Harsher in Hindsight when we learn Jasmine's parents frequently neglected to feed her.

From the back story, there's Lance, a man who is disgusted by Pokemon abuse and wants to see Pokemon treated well by trainers. During his tenure as Chairman of the Pokemon League, he goes about trying to "fix" these issues through increasingly draconian and elitist policies that wind up allying him with people who outright fear and dislike Pokemon ownership. It all ends with him ousted and incredibly unpopular.

Erika and Morty. They're genuinely concerned for Jasmine and want her to be happy, but they had no qualms about manipulating her or conspiring to create a doomed relationship to bring her out of her shell.

Wham Episode: At the end of Part 3, Jasmine discovers Morty having sex with another woman.

At the beginning of Part 4, Morty reveals he is engaged to Phoebe, and that he never said he loved Jasmine.

Parts 3 and 4 are basically one bombshell after the other.

After so much pain, hardship, and emotional turmoil, it all culminates at the end of Part 4 with the greatest shock of all:

Jasmine goes to Crescent Bay Bridge to end her life.

And there finds Ethan about to jump himself. The fateful meeting averts both of their deaths.

She [Phoebe] is my muse, my solace, my hope. The girl of my dreams, and the woman I love, and intend to marry..

... I never said I loved you.

After almost four years of build up, Chapter 63 drops the biggest bomb in the entire story with two lines

Ashley K. Red Satoshi

Jasmine:....my first, and only, crush.

Women Prefer Strong Men: As applied to the Pokemon Universe and understood by Morty, women are attracted to powerful trainers. He tries to attract Jasmine by winning the Gym Leader Tournament.

Worth Living For: Jasmine waves off her own suicidal thoughts in order to try to save Ethan from his suicidal thoughts.

You Need to Get Laid: All of her friends, with varying degrees of politeness, to Jasmine. Contrasts with her Mother's advice. Whether to resist or give in to this advice forms much of the romantic plot.

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